


Found In The Woods

by Darkstarling



Category: Cultist Simulator (Video Game)
Genre: Fallen Hero, Oh and creepy plant based undead, Origin Story, The Suppression Bureau sucks at it's job, but the Hunters are awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkstarling/pseuds/Darkstarling
Summary: This History didn't happen. Did any of them?Dr. Natalia Dragon is writing an after-action report for the Suppression Bureau.They captured a murderous occultist. This should be a triumph.It isn't.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	Found In The Woods

“Investigation of the ritual site provided the final clues,” Natalia typed. The ancient typewriter clacked away in the darkened office. Director Connie Lee had promised her a new one as soon as the budget allowed. The very latest model. She had been promising that for the past three years as the budget steadily shrank. She had offered to buy her one with her own money. Natalia had refused, lest Connie wind up funding the entire bureau out of her pocket.

Director Lee had also all but ordered her to go home tonight and get some of the much needed rest that she richly deserved. Well. It seemed neither of them would be getting what they wanted.

“All signs were consistent with a symbolic drowning, indicating a ritual invoking either Entity VI or Entity X. This is consistent with Witness E’s testimony of sighting a ‘great dark bird’ with a ‘bone white face’ at approximately 3 am that same morning.”

Moonrise, not that any of the information the board so grudgingly parceled out had included that connection.

“This confirms the presence and invocation of Entity X, codename Beachcomber. The ritual site itself was discovered through observation of unusual crow activity along the river (see attached notes and ornithologist testimony), as well as a spate of waterfront thefts (see incidents c-j) and unusual incidents at brothels (see Witnesses A-F).

It is at this point that I must once more urge the board to release greater specifics to investigators regarding the timing and circumstances under which occult rituals may be performed. While the desire for security is understandable, this misguided sense of paranoid secrecy has once again resulted in a gross perversion of human life and prevented us from doing our damn job.”

She slammed the carriage back on the typewriter, shaking.

Memories. Trudging determinedly through the fens, the sucking slosh of heavy boots and waders breaking the silence of the early morning fog. A graceless, unstoppable donkey compared to Connie's effortless leonine grace. The thrill of the first frost was a sharp contrast with the deafening roar of frogs and the untimely green blush of the twisting marsh grass. The pollen in the air made her eyes water, and above the crows wheeled and called. She had never seen so many.

The tracks and crushed stems they followed formed a story. There was always a story. She could always see it. She couldn’t stop herself, the fragments falling into place with terrible and merciless clarity. A lone woman carrying a rolled carpet with a shocking, contemptuous ease. Carrying, not dragging, swung over her shoulder with a practiced casualness despite the 18 stone burden of the body within. Natalia had known what she would find at the river’s edge long before they had arrived, or heard Connie’s furious snort.

She was neat, their nemesis. Even in the moment Natalia had to give her that. Douglas’s uniform from when his corpse had been stripped, laid out precisely, anything shiny or reflective carefully collected in a now empty bowl. The piled and husked plant remnants from where the seeds had been inserted. Not that their pitiful list of warning signs had mentioned those details either. But Natalia could read between the lines. She had always been able to. She could read between the lines so damn well.

The tracks by the water’s edge where their foe had knelt and sunk the body in the river.

The two sets of tracks leading away.

Natalia came to herself, teeth and hands clenched, gazing unseeingly at her report. Well, a detached and fluttering part of her thought, glancing at her written outburst, I suppose this is only the first draft then.

She began to breath, very carefully, calming herself. She unspooled the paper, and carefully and precisely placed it in the drafts file. Her mental composition of the report continued, detached, in the background. The rest of her was filled with a growing sense of clarity.

This could never be allowed to happen again.

She knew what to do.

"Having determined that Agent Douglas had been re-animated as a Wood Class Revenant, we were able to substantially explain the recent incidents of graveyard vandalism (see incidents a-b)" she thought, as Natalia composed an abashed note to Director Connie Lee admitting that Connie had been entirely right, and that Natalia would be taking her rest after all. As well as tomorrow off. Connie would probably try to insist on extending it to a week, but that was her business. If Connie wouldn’t take the time off, neither would Natalia.

“From that point, discrete inquiries at several exotic greenhouses were able to produce more tangible leads. See attached list for further observation.’”

Unlocking her lab, and carefully removing her favorite pair of scissors. Unlocking a second drawer with a different key, and removing a small black notebook.

“These leads, combined with Douglas’s pre-mortem investigative notes (and highlighted by his post-mortem attempts at their destruction) identified the headquarters of the Children of Silence in the former St. Agnes Hospital, dubbed ‘House Violet’ by the cult. I will be formally recommending Douglas for posthumous commendation. Unfortunately the cult leader, who referred to herself as Bright Ice, was killed in attempting to escape. Efforts to determine her true identity have so far been unsuccessful.”

Another memory. Connie Lee with a pistol in her hand, looking at her. She hadn’t said anything. She hadn’t needed to. Natalia once again dragged herself back to the present with an effort.

A rattling ride home in the underground, deliberately staring at nothing but the lights passing in the dark.

“I further formally request the use of the captured revenants for study in teratogenic processes and decay. Preliminary investigations indicate that the revenants are rapidly degenerating to a wholly plant state anchored on a skeletal framework, which likely can be maintained indefinitely if rooting can be prevented. This has the advantage of eliminating complications with body disposal. See attached plan for course of study and preservation. Unfortunately the revenant originating from Agent Douglas was not present at Violet House, and has not yet been located or destroyed.”

Letting herself into her apartment. Carefully changing her working clothes for her most comfortable pair of pajamas.

One more memory, and this time she didn’t shy away. The body of Bright Ice cooling on the floor, the smell of fall and loam and blood. Blank eyed revenants standing inert, one with a horribly familiar face. Natalia collapsed in the corner, overwhelmed. A shuffling sound. Lee staring, too shocked to move. And sobbing as a cold hand settled comfortingly on her shoulder.

That terrible sense of clarity once more, as she cut a lock of her hair and set it under her pillow. Laying the small black notebook on the bedside table, her favorite pair of scissors resting on top of it.

No information in the Suppression Bureau had told her how to do this either. Nothing had given her any reason to believe that a revenant could retain even the faintest spark of true memory, though she had hoped. Of course she had hoped. And she had been rewarded. But the useless pile of garbage the Suppression Bureau called their library was full of warnings. Some real, some fanciful, some traps.

And she always had been good at reading between the lines.

Natalia lay down in bed, and closed her eyes. Focusing as well as she could on what was truly important. On how light was brightest in the dark, how even in the face of beautiful monsters a dead man could rouse himself to give her comfort. Death was inevitable, and no heaven awaited. But we could say not today.

She opened her eyes to a pitch dark dream, full of the creaking of trees and the fluttering of moths. She nodded to herself, grimly satisfied, and set off into the twisting Wood. Branches hung low, roots twisted. Unseen things on unseen wings beat their way through the night, and she felt the urge to drop to all fours and howl and run in the beating dark forever.

Memories. Clinking glass and boiling reagents, soldering wire and late nights at study. The smell of chemicals and old books. She was not a beast to be lost. She knew fire and steel and secrets. She had a heart of fire and light. Even in this place she would make a path. And she would see. When she next opened her eyes she held a burning lantern. The light was fitful, and the shadows whirled and dappled as she turned to see the scar barked trees. But it was enough.

More than enough. Bright Ice was only one of many. And Connie Lee’s efforts, though valiant, were futile in the face of superiors who would keep them muzzled and blind.

It would get her killed.

No.

“Don’t worry, Connie,” she said to herself, setting out once more. “I’ll see for you. I’ll see for us all.”

She lifted her lantern, and set out for higher ground. The woods were dark, deep, and indeed lovely. And she had promises to keep.


End file.
